Zinc Modified Hierarchical ZSM-5 for Aromatisation of Propane

Hierarchical H/ZnZSM-5 was synthesised and tested to study the effect of modifying the catalyst with Zn in the aromatisation of propane using a fixed bed microreactor. Characterisation of the samples was done with FTIR, Raman spectroscopy, XRF, XRD, BET, N 2 adsorption study and TEM. Based on the XRD and BET results, synthesised hierarchical H/ZnZSM-5 with 2 % zinc loading was the best, with a percentage crystallinity of 85.4 % and surface area of 405.97 m 2 /g, and hierarchy factor of 0.14. TEM results showed the mesoporous nature of the synthesised catalyst, and the peak at the Raman shift of 1645 cm − 1 confirmed the modification with Zn. Propane aromatisation performance evaluation of the synthesised catalyst samples was done in a fixed bed reactor, and the products were analysed with the aid of online gas chromatography (GC). The results showed that conversion was not significantly altered with increasing zinc loading. In contrast, selectivity of aromatics increased with an increase in zinc loading, reaching a maximum of about 62.7 % for 2 % zinc loading and dropping to 42.4 % for 3 % loading of zinc. The characterisation and performance test results indicated that 2 % zinc loading is the best catalyst.